Month: July 2008

This one was pretty simple for me. I had previously been to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, which is of the same, distinctive star shaped design as the fort in the image. I had a hunch it was an American fort built in the 19th century. The star shape and sloped walls were built so the fort had no 90 degree angles. That way canon balls wouldn’t hit the wall with full force and would glance off the wall.

I had been reading (listening actually, with audiobooks) a lot of Revolutionary War history, so my first guess was New York….and I was right. It is Governor’s Island.

Ok, I have to confess. I would never have gotten this one. While I’ve seen photos of the cathedral, I didn’t know its name nor did I know what city it was in. On top of that, I was guessing the buildings around it were more Soviet or Eastern Block, so I was thinking Russia or East Germany.

Many of the people who got it right knew that the rounded corners of the buildings were indicative of Spain, or at least that the roof tops were something you’d see in Spain or Italy. I wasn’t even thinking in those terms.

Then again, I was only able to search for an hour before a correct answer came in…

If I had known more about the Sagrada Familia, I’d have known that the cranes were the give away. It has been under construction for about 100 years now and still isn’t complete.

I’m back from the outback of Australia now and will be in Singapore in a few days. Singapore as free wifi all over the country, so expect the contests to get put up a bit faster for the next five contests or so. Karel as also sent me the remaining contests, so there shouldn’t be any delay.

If you want immediate notification of new contests, you can follow me on Twitter. All the new posts are published there immediately in addition to RSS.

The answer to #43 is sort of the analogue to contest #34. It is the Russian (formerly Soviet) space center in Kazakhstan, the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

I got this one pretty quick. The American launch sites have towers along side the rocket. The Soviet ones always had supports at the bottom of the rocket which would open up like flower petals, so they have a bit more of a triangular appearance. Also, the ground looked very dry, so it was a logical first guess. The tracks leading up to the circular cement was also sort of a give away.

This one was pretty easy. I guessed it immediately because I was there just a few months ago. It is Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok International Airport.. Hong Kong is tight on land and created an artificial island to house the airport. It opened back in 1998. The Hong Kong airport was recently voted the best airport in the world. I always thought the Singapore airport was pretty nice. I’ll be able to compare the two in about a week or so when I fly into Singapore.

Here is Karel’s explanation for picking this place:

I chose it because some odd 20 years ago I worked for a Dutch dredging
company who was involved in the construction of this island.
Which at that time was the largest civil project ever constructed in the
world.

Lots of people got this one right: (For future reference, please put a unique identifier like an initial or a nickname when leaving an answer. Some first names are very common)

Brian

Jeff

Skip (Austin, TX)

Willem

Shawn

Enrique S

ej

Devin

ACG

Stephen Hope

Andy McConnell

Janna

Atilla CALISKAN

David Hill

PK

Ewen

David S

Chris Christensen

Ben Bayer

Fergymadrid

Wendy N

Linda Holland

Brian T

FYI, it might take me a few days to update the leader board. All the raw data is in the comments, however. I’m writing this outside at 4:30am in the Australian Outback in Coober Pedy, SA. My bus leaves in 30 min to Alice Springs.

This contest was the first opportunity for me to play along, as I had no idea what Karel gave me. The answer is Ile Amsterdam. It is a French Territory in the South Indian Ocean near Antarctica.

The process I went through was something like this:

– There was no obvious evidence of vegetation or human settlements (roads, runways, etc)

This gave me the idea that it was probably non-tropical. If it were tropical, there would be trees on it and probably some sign of humans. Most islands of this size would have some human settlement. (It turns out there is some vegetation on the island)

– It was obviously volcanic, even though the middle of the island was covered with clouds.

Most of the islands in the Arctic are not classic volcanic islands like this. I figured it was one of the odd ball islands in the south.

I also know that Karel is from the Netherlands, and I have no idea if that as part of his decision making in choosing “New Amsterdam”, but I went with it. (I also looked in other former Dutch colonies in Indonesia and the Caribbean).